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Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

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Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#51

Post by ausjke »

fencepost wrote: post #48
ausjke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any source? openwrt can't fix kernel security bugs, or OpenSSL issues, but it can provide a fast fix after those exploits are announced at least. i have not hearded wide spread problem with openwrt yet.

That may be based on vendor implementations - I think there are a bunch of consumer routers or there that are based on reskinned old versions of OpenWRT.

yes the key is OSS openwrt instead of vendor-specific openwrt, which is normally lagging behind still, probably slightly better than closed vendor firmware, but not that much better.

true OSS openwrt has the fastest updates and security fixes, and it's solid.

Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#52

Post by user5994461 »

throwaway5665 wrote: post #47
r3bl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, since he's taken steps to protect his identity, CIA might have offered a fake job offer for the purpose of him revealing his identity.

I think this what happened.. the government has very formal hiring procedures, a government employee can’t just send spurious offer letters to foreign nationals.

An email is not a job offer. It's just an invitation to interview. There are no procedures against that.

Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#53

Post by throwaway5665 »

user5994461 wrote: post #52
throwaway5665 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this what happened.. the government has very formal hiring procedures, a government employee can’t just send spurious offer letters to foreign nationals.

An email is not a job offer. It's just an invitation to interview. There are no procedures against that.

He literally said job offer.

Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#55

Post by 3pt14159 »

throwaway5665 wrote: post #53
user5994461 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An email is not a job offer. It's just an invitation to interview. There are no procedures against that.

He literally said job offer.

I may have misrembered. It was so long ago.

Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#56

Post by userbinator »

3pt14159 wrote: post #10

When I was an irresponsible high school grey hat (2001) I was part of a small group of people that shared exploits. We weren't that talented, but one of the guys in our group was still able to get into the cameras in the parking lot of the CIA. This is the problem with cyber security: Even if you're the most knowledgeable organization on earth you still fuck it up. Any one person can fuck up any one thing and if it i…

They emailed back with a job offer. Back then we assumed it was trap to get him to travel to the USA from Canada, but these days, based on what I've seen, I think it was legitimate.

I think it is a trap of sorts --- "join us and help build the future dystopian surveillance state, or we'll find out who you are and arrest you".

Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#57

Post by dopamean »

3pt14159 wrote: post #10

When I was an irresponsible high school grey hat (2001) I was part of a small group of people that shared exploits. We weren't that talented, but one of the guys in our group was still able to get into the cameras in the parking lot of the CIA. This is the problem with cyber security: Even if you're the most knowledgeable organization on earth you still fuck it up. Any one person can fuck up any one thing and if it i…

I received an offer from the FBI in 2003 for something I did in 2001. I was similarly distrustful even though I had already been caught and punished. It was the most surreal and frankly unnerving experience.

Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#58

Post by 3pt14159 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #32
d33 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you imagine a camera honeypot at the CIA parking lot? They'd still be leaking a lot of information if the image was true.

Did they go there in person and verify it's an actual CIA parking lot?

IIRC, which isn’t garunteed due to the years involved, it was on an IP that when he did a reverse lookup for others on the subnet associated with a cia.gov subdomain or something like that. Plus it just looked American. But we could have misinterpreted it. And it could have just been a recruiting tool or honey pot. I get lost in forests of mirrors.

Re: Romanian Hackers Infiltrated 65% of DC Outdoor Surveillance Cameras

#59

Post by userbinator »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #33
wybiral wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What incentive pushed the manufacturers of those routers in that direction though?

Torrenting and child porn, I would guess. I remember the slow transition from people using open networks to securing the shit out of them, and there was this big fear that someone could use your network to download copyright-protected and/or illegal material, and it would be tied to your IP.

Indeed, 10-15 years ago in almost any area with a population you could easily find an open network to get onto the Internet when you wanted to. I could check email and lookup some quick things even while riding public transit, without needing mobile data. There was also a grassroots movement of sorts to "share your WiFi", and even a well-known security professional opened his: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wirel....

Now there's almost none of those left, and what places do advertise "free WiFi" are captive/login portals. It was more free and open back then, I actually quite miss those days...

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